The Amazon rainforest has been burning for weeks. Yet Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, mobilized the armed forces to help contain the fires only in the last few days—in the face of European leaders’ threat to suspend a major trade deal and the possibility of a far-reaching boycott of Brazilian products. And though the Bolsonaro government’s rollback and weak enforcement of laws protecting the Amazon are root causes of the crisis, encouraging ranchers to set fires to clear land for agriculture, there has been no mention of any policy change.

The crisis in the Amazon is a stark example of the damage that can be done when governments bow unequivocally to business interests. It also highlights an increasingly common phenomenon: the cynical manipulation of anti-corruption efforts to undermine democracy and advance an authoritarian political agenda.

Some conservative economists argue that corruption can be benign, or even beneficial, as it enables economic actors to bypass regulations, thereby enabling markets to function more effectively. While there may be instances of benign corruption, the truth is that corruption corrodes markets, protects incumbents from competitive challenges by impeding the entry of new actors, destroys the moral fabric of society, and stunts economic development. Indeed, as Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) shows, there is a strong inverse correlation between development and corruption.

According to the latest CPI data, the world’s least corrupt countries are Denmark and New Zealand. Both have achieved high standards of living. The world’s most corrupt countries, by contrast, are Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria—all poor and mired in conflict. Ranked from least to most corrupt, the United States is 22nd on the 180-country list; among major developing and emerging economies, India is 78th, China is 87th, Brazil is 105th, and Nigeria is 144th.

The data also suggest that the common belief that corruption is hardwired in some societies does not stand up to scrutiny. Corruption levels can and do change, at times quite sharply. A couple of centuries ago, corruption was rampant in countries like the United Kingdom, which today ranks 11th on the CPI. And recent examples from Asia show improvement can occur quickly. Prior to self-government in 1959, Singapore was beset by corruption; since 1995 (when the CPI was introduced), it has consistently ranked among Asia’s least corrupt countries. This year, it reached third place (tied with Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland). Likewise, Japan is 18th, and Hong Kong has risen quickly to 14th place.

Addressing corruption is not always straightforward. The connection between corruption management and democratic compromise is complex and not commonly understood. This is the reason why many leaders who have come to power with a genuine interest in controlling corruption have ended up nurturing cronyism and damaging democracy instead.

That is what happened in Brazil last year, when former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was jailed for corruption, not as an honest attempt to build a more transparent political system, but rather to exclude him from the presidential election, which opinion polls suggested he would win, thereby enabling Bolsonaro’s victory.

Some political leaders take an even more direct approach, launching a corruption “purge” that targets rivals or critics for prosecution. In countries that are rife with high-level corruption, this is easy to do: leaders can simply begin by taking aim at those who challenge their authority. What starts as an anti-corruption drive ends up as an instrument of cronyism and media control. And by creating a safe zone for loyalists, it often ends up exacerbating corruption.

The campaign pursued by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari since his election in 2015 is widely viewed as having targeted opponents and spared allies. The same risks exist in many other countries.

Corruption can implicate even those who would prefer to operate according to the law, especially in countries where it is endemic. I was personally caught up in such a situation in 1992, when leaving Moscow after a five-day conference. The immigration officer at the airport looked at my passport and said grimly, “Your visa was for four days. It expired yesterday.” Then, without batting an eye, he asked for a $50 bribe. Looking back, I marvel at my courage—I bargained, and we settled on $5. But when he stamped my passport, the thought struck me that if someone was watching, I could be arrested for bribing an officer. I panicked, snatched my passport, and ran to my gate without paying the bribe. To this day, I don’t know whether my action was morally defensible. I struck a contract and reneged on my part. It is rare to feel guilty for not paying a bribe, but I lived with that feeling for quite some time.

But the mere fact that I was put in that position shows just how easily corruption can proliferate, especially in a context where it is already an embedded part of everyday life. In such cases, corrupt systems are vulnerable not just to corruption itself, but also to politically motivated “anti-corruption” initiatives that entrench the power imbalances they are supposed to overcome and facilitate the rise of undemocratic regimes. The scale of the devastation such manipulation can wreak is evident in the Amazon today.

]]>A conversation with the CIA’s privacy and civil liberties officer: Balancing transparency and secrecy in a digital agehttps://www.brookings.edu/events/a-conversation-with-the-cias-privacy-and-civil-liberties-officer-balancing-transparency-and-secrecy-in-a-digital-age/
Wed, 22 May 2019 18:59:40 +0000https://www.brookings.edu/?post_type=event&p=584891The modern age poses many questions about the nature of privacy and civil liberties. Data flows across borders and through the hands of private companies, governments, and non-state actors. For the U.S. intelligence community, what do civil liberties protections look like in this digital age? These kinds of questions are on top of longstanding ones about how organizations like the CIA can necessarily operate in secret to keep people safe but still be responsive to legitimate concerns of the public. What should we reasonably expect from an intelligence agency when it comes to transparency?

At the CIA, the Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties (OPCL), led by the CIA’s privacy and civil liberties officer, helps to ensure that privacy and civil liberties are integrated into the day-to-day conduct of the agency’s intelligence mission. OPCL provides privacy and civil liberties guidance regarding the collection and handling of sensitive information in connection with online systems, programs, and enterprises across the agency. OPCL also informs and trains agency personnel regarding privacy and civil liberties protections.

On May 31, CIA Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer Ben Huebner discussed these questions and more with Brookings Federal Executive Fellow Ryan Trapani. After their discussion the speakers answered questions from the audience.

I am a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington, DC where I specialize in counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, stabilization, illicit economies, organized crime and urban violence. One of the areas I focus on is Somalia where I travel regularly.

My testimony below represents my personal views only and does not reflect the views of Brookings, its other scholars, employees, officers, and/or trustees. As an independent think tank, The Brookings Institution does not take institutional positions on any issue.

My latest fieldwork in Somalia in December 2017 was part of a UN University (UNU) project on amnesty, leniency, and defectors’ programs in Somalia, Nigeria, and Iraq, The Limits of Punishment: Transitional Justice and Violent Extremism (UNU, June 2018), funded by United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID). Sections of my statement for the record draw on my chapter in that volume — “The Hard, Hot, Dusty Road to Accountability, Reconciliation, and Peace in Somalia: Amnesties, Defectors programs, Traditional Justice, Informal Reconciliation Mechanisms, and Punitive Responses to al-Shabab”. My written statement for the record does not represent the views of UNU or DFID; it reflects my personal views only.

Summary

Since 1991, Somalia has been battered by undulating phases of a civil war playing out among the country’s many fractious clans, larger entities aspiring to statehood, warlords, and Islamist groups. State institutions, including the security apparatus, have experienced a profound collapse. Despite extensive international efforts for three decades to rebuild state institutions and stabilize the country, Mogadishu-based national governments have had limited operational capacity and physical reach into much of the country. Critically, they have been debilitated by parochial political competition among the country’s clans and powerbrokers. Thus, the official state has been mostly unable to deliver even a modicum of governance to local populations while battling strong and agile military opponents and separatism. Characteristically, the most effective, even if brutal, stabilizing actors in Somalia have been Islamist groups. More than other contestants for power, they have been able to rise above clan divisions and administer a uniform rule, protect marginalized minority clans, and deliver swift, predictable, and non-corrupt justice.

Yet because of their connections to global jihadist movements, including active participation in vicious terrorism abroad and in Somalia, and significant human rights abuses, rule by the country’s jihadi groups has been unacceptable to the international community as well as resented by Somalis. Nonetheless, when international or Somali military efforts have liberated territories, clan infighting and discrimination have often broken out, and the state has often failed with adequate and equitable governance.

Experiencing multiple iterations of jihadi groups able to control large territories amidst state collapse, the government of Somalia is currently battling the Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen, commonly referred to as al Shabab, and its splinter faction, the Islamic State. At its peak, between 2009 and 2011, al Shabab controlled most of southern Somalia, including Mogadishu. Since 2012, an international military intervention by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), composed of forces from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Djibouti,

in combination with Somali clan militias and the vestiges of Somali national forces (SNF) supported by the larger international community, has succeeded in wrestling control of large parts of Somalia from al Shabab. But since 2015, military efforts against al Shabab have stalled, the capacity of Somali national forces remains minimal, and AMISOM is reducing its presence. Meanwhile, al Shabab, because of its delivery of pan-clan governance, remains deeply entrenched and undefeated. So the prospect is for conflict to intensify and insecurity to worsen.

International efforts to improve the capacity of the Somali government have registered some important progress: Somalia successfully, albeit quite imperfectly, conducted two presidential and parliamentary elections. Crucially, it has embarked on a major political and institutional overhaul, including the writing of a new constitution and formation of federal states.

Yet significant tensions and disagreements between the federal government and federal states persist. In 2018, this had produced an intense months-long crisis. Meanwhile, corruption and clientelism run rampant and affect every sector and level of government, business, and society.

Also the political crisis among members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has significantly negatively affected Somalia, with external actors exacerbating tensions between the government of Somalia and opposition politicians and between the federal government, particularly President Mohamed Abdullahi “Farmajo” Mohamed and federal states.

The Military Battlefield

Al Shabab still controls tracts of rural central, southern, and western Somalia, including in the regions of Lower and Middle Juba, Lower and Middle Shabelle, Hiraan, Gedo, Bay and Bakool, Mudug, Galguduud, and Puntland, as well as major roads throughout the country. It regularly takes over major towns, particularly as some AMISOM forces, such as from Ethiopia, have started to withdraw. AMISOM has been plagued by intelligence, logistical, and mandate deficiencies and rivalries among contributing members. It lacks offensive capabilities, rapid strike forces, adequate airlift and mobility assets, and force enablers and supporters. Funding uncertainty also continues to plague the mission. In January 2016 the uncertainty and AMISOM dissatisfaction with payments worsened when, for multiple reasons, the European Union (EU), the sole entity paying the salaries of AMISOM soldiers, decreased its stipend contribution by 20 percent (from US$1,028 per soldier per month to US$822).1 As of September 2018, the EU was yet to define its funding commitment to AMISOM beyond 2018.

AMISOM forces have been mostly in a static garrison lockdown since 2015, having exhausted their offensive and counterinsurgency capacities, at the cost of significant loss of life for some of the member countries. To the extent that new offensive operations against al Shabab are mounted by ground forces, they are mostly conducted by clan militias and local warlords and their forces, sometimes along with local or state police forces known as darawish (often mostly more institutionalized militias).

Neither AMISOM nor the Somalia National Army (SNA) have developed adequate military holding capacity after clearing operations. Because of lack of local language capacities, overstretch, and its weak force-protection posture, it rarely engages proactively with local populations in areas of its garrisons. As a result, the crucial holding function once again is left to clan and warlord militias. AMISOM, like the SNA, explicitly rely on and use clan militias, though these actors subscribe to no international standards of conduct, face no accountability for their human rights violations, and often use child soldiers.2 Unable to receive formal international salary assistance, beyond clandestine income from foreign intelligence services operating in Somalia, these militias engage in extensive extortion and predation of local communities, discrimination against rival clans, and the theft of their resources, such as land or water, as well as rapes. Although the total number of militiamen may be in the tens of thousands, there is currently no demobilization program for the militias. However, local communities complain equally of extortion, predation, and land and resources theft by various factions of the SNA and Somali National Police (SNP). Like Somalia’s intelligence services, the SNA and SNP are extensively infiltrated by al Shabab operatives.

In May 2017, the government of Somalia, with backing from international partners and buy-in from Somalia’s federal states, presented a national security pact defining Somalia’s national security architecture. Under the Security Pact,3 which envisions Somalia’s security apparatus to be “able, accountable, affordable, and acceptable”4 to Somali society, federal states were to integrate their regional forces into the SNA. At least some of the militias were also to be integrated into state and national police forces. However, as the planned size of the SNA is to be 18,000 and the size of future federal and state police capped at 32,000, there will not be enough space in the formal security sector for many existing state, clan, and warlord militia members. Many other challenges regarding the force structure persist. Moreover, given the crisis in relations between the federal government and federal states that has persisted throughout most of 2018, the federal states’ commitment to such integration of forces appears to have dissipated.

Meanwhile, the Somali national forces remain notoriously undertrained and under-equipped as well as corrupt. The SNA consists mostly of ineffective battalions that are unable to pair up with AMISOM even for joint holding operations, let alone offensive actions against al Shabab. Despite extensive allocation of resources to training, the SNA itself remains a hodgepodge of local clan forces and militias and are riddled by clan and patronage cleavages, resulting in various units fighting each other, such as over control of checkpoints that can be exploited for illegal rent extraction. Nominally, the Somali Ministry of Defense has some 29,000 on its payroll, but of that number only 12,000 may actually be fighters, with the rest widows and the elderly.5 Debilitatingly, money for police officers and soldier salaries, paid for by the international community, are often stolen in Mogadishu, thus undermining the morale and cohesion of the government’s forces.6 The Operational Readiness Assessment that the Somali government undertook of the SNA in late 2017 revealed deficiencies across the board of the entire military, from command and control, to cohesion, training, equipment, logistics and enabler support, morale, corruption, and factionalism. It remains to be seen whether the federal government will be able to undertake the necessary reforms.

In 2018, AMISOM began the transition process for greater reliance on Somali forces, slightly reducing its presence in Somalia, following the informal withdrawal of Ethiopian forces in 2017. But in July 2018, recognizing the woeful lack of readiness of the Somali security forces and the entrenchment of al Shabab, the United Nations Security Council extended AMISOM’s mandate. Instead of AMISOM’s mission ending in 2020 as previously planned, Somali security forces are to remain in the lead of Somalia’s security.7 AMISOM — whose country contingents are to various degrees embedded in numerous legal and illegal forms of Somalia’s political economy, such as charcoal, fuel, and sugar trading and smuggling,8 has engaged in only limited transition planning with the international community and the Somali government. The unannounced withdrawals of several Ethiopian military contingents in Somalia had left behind significant power vacuums, rapidly filled by al Shabab and significantly worsening the security of local civilian populations. Al Shabab has thus been able to expand its territorial reach and regain some previously lost territory. In early 2018, some elements of a transition plan were agreed to, but execution has lagged substantially behind.9

The prospect currently is for large gaps between AMISOM’s drawdowns and eventual withdrawal and the readiness of the Somali forces. The SNA remains unprepared to fill even the existing security role of AMISOM.

Al Shabab’s current strength is estimated to be between 2,000 and 3,000 active combatants. In 2017, al Shabab engaged in intensified recruitment among Somalia’s many unemployed young men and resorted to significantly increasing forcible abductions of children.10 And while the tempo and number of security incidents during 2017 fluctuated and in the latter part of the year went down, the severity of attacks — from bloody terrorist incidents in Mogadishu to takeover of towns as close to Mogadishu as thirty kilometers — increased. Al Shabab has also resorted to charging more frequent and more pervasive zakat fees on any economic activity.11

Although al Shabab is strongest in the lower parts of Somalia, such as the lower Juba and lower Shabelle areas, it is not geographically confined. It also retains operational military capacity in the northern federal states of Puntland and Somaliland; and south of Puntland some form of its presence is widespread, such as in the imposition and collection of taxes. In addition to systematically collecting taxes in Mogadishu and throughout the country, al Shabab regularly conducts bomb attacks and assassinations in Mogadishu, as well as major terrorist attacks in Kenya (previously also in Uganda). Even major towns firmly held by anti-Shabab forces, such as Kismayo, where Ahmed Madobe’s militias and the Kenyan Defense Forces rule, can be surrounded by territories held by al Shabab.

Anti-Shabab actors, including AMISOM and the Somali national forces, thus rely on U.S. air strikes to limit al Shabab’s often-successful attacks against their installations. The presence of U.S. soldiers in Somalia increased significantly in 2017, doubling to more than 500. However, as such attacks on al Shabab significantly increased in the latter part of 2017, and allegedly caused civilian casualties and exacerbated clan grievances, al Shabab was able to exploit such claims. Moreover, the U.S. air campaign has suffered the same limitations as AMISOM offensives: in the absence of holding forces, the airstrikes merely disperse al Shabab to other areas, including to Mogadishu, even as the U.S. tries to hit al Shabab vehicles to prevent their movement. Beyond air support, U.S. Special Operations Forces also operate on the ground, targeting al Shabab and the Islamic State and advising and assisting Somalia’s elite commando units in counterterrorism operations. But even such operations against high-value targets are constrained in their ultimate effectiveness without enhanced security capacities of the Somali forces and improved governance.

Moreover, al Shabab is not the only militant actor in Somalia. More than 60 warring parties are present in in the country, from clan and warlord militias to various other militant groups, such as the Sufi al Sunna or the Islamic State.12 A splinter group of al Shabab, the Islamic State has been based mostly in Puntland, a major entry-point for various illicit and smuggling networks and a former hub of Somali pirates. Lately, the Islamic State appears to have expanded its operations also to Mogadishu. Nonetheless, in comparison to al Shabab, it remains a much weaker militant group.13

Non-Military Approaches: Defectors’ Programs

The government of Somalia and the international community have principally relied on militarily defeating al Shabab; and there is no immediate prospect for Somali government negotiations with al Shabab. However, aware of the limits of the military counterinsurgency efforts, the Somali government has completed the military efforts with declarations of amnesties for jihadi militants, ad hoc political deals with splinter groups, and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR)-like programs for defectors and populations living under militant rule. Their purpose is to weaken al Shabab on the battlefield. Somali government officials and implementing international partners report that al Shabab defectors numbering in the low thousands have gone through such programs.14

The government has not yet undertaken any similar DDR-like efforts toward the myriad of clan and warlord militias that exit in Somalia. Efforts at reintegration of former combatants from al Shabab and beyond, and at clan and community reconciliation, have also taken place through non-governmental programs and traditional justice mechanisms.

Two sets of Somali government-led non-punitive processes have been under way: 1) ad hoc political deals with so-called high-value defectors who receive protection and red-carpet treatment from the Somali government and face no accountability or scrutiny for their past behavior; and 2) DDR-like rehabilitation programs for al Shabab defectors who are assessed by Somali intelligence officials to pose a low risk of returning to violent terrorism and proselytizing or providing logistical support for al Shabab. The defectors’ program consists of five phases: outreach, reception, screening, rehabilitation, and reintegration. The rehabilitation component of the low-risk defector program is administered at three facilities –the Serendi center in Mogadishu, a center in Baidoa, and a center in Kismayo – by two international implementing partners.

Those defectors who are assessed as high-risk as well as high-risk detainees are sent to military courts widely perceived not to adhere to international human rights standards. The courts mostly sentence those convicted to the death penalty. The international community has worked hard to persuade a reluctant government of Somalia to try high-risk defectors and detainees in civilian courts, and to that effect has built a special civilian court in Mogadishu.

Little transparency exists as to how defectors are received by either African Union forces or Somali authorities. The screening process is equally non-transparent and raises a high possibility that populations who lived under al Shabab rule and were forced to work for al Shabab even in ordinary tasks, such as cooking and washing, are caught up in the screening process, and at best judged as low-risk defectors. Despite the development of draft standard operating procedures for screening to reduce the arbitrariness of high-risk and low-risk judgements, a substantial risk persists of arbitrariness as to who is assessed as high risk and thus likely to be sentenced to death.

The government-led effort that has received the most support from the international community, the program for low-risk defectors, has registered the greatest improvements and progress in its operations, such as in separating children from exploitative adults and improving exit procedures. Prior to 2015, the exit procedures were opaque and arbitrary, defectors often languished in the facilities for years, and the facilities at times overlapped with detention. But major challenges persist. These include: the controversial role and presence of Somali intelligence services at the rehabilitation facilities; little harmonization across the centers; the lack of any rehabilitation facilities for female defectors, detainees, and women who lived under al Shabab rule; the underdevelopment of reinsertion and rehabilitation programming for receiving communities and the communities’ reconciliation with former al Shabab associates and among rival and subordinate and dominant clans; and the lack of job opportunities for former al Shabab combatants and associates who, amidst overall high unemployment, frequently join the Somali military or intelligence services or militias.

Other large problems loom over these programs: the lack of a legal framework; high corruption and lack of adherence to international human rights laws by Somali government institutions; the lack of a parallel effort to disarm and transform clan and warlord militias; high persisting clan conflict and discrimination; and the country’s prevalent politics of exclusion and marginalization.

Crucially, difficulties balancing leniency, forgiveness, and battlefield pragmatism on the one hand with accountability, justice, and victims’ rights on the other hand, and hence societal acceptance of or disquiet with such measures affects all three sets of processes for high-value defectors, high-risk defectors and detainees, and low-risk defectors. Resentments are created by perceptions that high-value al Shabab defectors receive a red-carpet treatment from the Somali government and complete impunity and low-level defectors receive support such as literacy, numeracy, and vocational training, in addition to religious deradicalization, while the receiving communities continue to exist in poverty and without any government services.

There is also a deep belief among many Somali civil society representatives that the root cause of Somalia’s multifaceted problems is the profound and pervasive impunity of the powerful, and the fear that non-punitive approaches, such as the high-value and even the low-risk defectors’ programs, only augment this sense of impunity. Women representatives in particular voice such views.

Emblematic of such complexities and sensitivities is the case of Mukhtar Robow, a former spokesman of al Shabab and the group’s deputy leader. Although long on a U.S. capture-or-kill list and widely accused of severe human rights violations, Robow struck a deal with the Government of Somalia in August 2017, and since has been conducting a prominent political life in Mogadishu and the South West State of Somalia. In addition to receiving armed protection from the Somali government, he was able to keep his personal militia, whose members, like him, have not been subject to any judicial or amnesty process or other accountability or truth-telling measures. Such total impunity and complete disregard for victims’ rights have deeply angered Somalia’s civil society.

The government of Somalia expected that Robow would either fight al Shabab or use his importance in the Rahaweyn clan to persuade other Rahaweyn fighters of al Shabab to disarm. Such expectations have not materialized, however. Instead, Robow has engaged in an intense political power struggle in the South West State, dominated by the Rahaweyn clan. Despite opposition from the federal government, Robow has been campaigning for the presidency of the South West State in elections to be held in November 2018. The federal government sought to bar him from running, citing extant international sanctions against him. But the chairman of the elections committee of the South West State cleared him to participate. In the absence of a formalized and approved constitution, it is disputed whether the federal government or the federal state is the proper authority to decide who can run in federal elections. Along with the rest of the elections committee members, the chairman has since resigned, but Robow continues to campaign, defying control of the federal government and successfully manipulating local politics.

Clearly, non-punitive approaches to former low-risk al Shabab combatants, clans aligned with al Shabab because of prior discrimination, and populations who lived under al Shabab rule are needed. They can prevent new injustice to those who had to endure al Shabab rule, and they can reduce violence, and facilitate achieving a deep peace which avoids endless cycles of violence and discrimination and counter-revenge. However, emphasizing accountability in creative ways beyond imprisonment, as tending to well as victims’ rights and reparations are equally essential for a lasting peace.

Governance and Politics

The political context in Somalia remains as fraught and fractured as the military battlefield. Although sub-federal state formation has been under way in Somalia since 2015 — a most positive development — the process is tense with inter-state and state-federal government rivalries over territories, control of armed forces, resource-sharing, and power-delegation.

Clan discriminations and rivalries continue to prevail and debilitate governance, producing hung governments unable to produce laws and policy at the federal level and incessant political infighting and discrimination against minorities also at the federal level.15 The legal formalization of the 2012 provisional constitution as well as of some of Somalia’s existing six states are yet to take place. Recent efforts to create pan-clan political parties as a result of new electoral legislation, attempts change the rules of impeachment to limit this frequent tool of political and financial extortion, and mechanisms to strengthen the capacity of the federal government to provide revenues to federal entities are beacons of hope that the political and clan infighting can diminish in the future.

In the meantime, however, Somalia is often considered to be the poorest, least developed, and most collapsed and corrupt country in the world, and critically dependent on foreign aid. Building of state institutions, or extending any form of federal state or national state presence, remains a distant prospect in many parts of the country beyond regional capitals or major economic hubs. Formal taxing capacity remains constrained, with many business community members questioning why they should pay taxes when they receive back neither physical infrastructure, nor security, nor an educated work force. Of course, the government is not able to provide such public goods in the absence of tax revenues, although the current government of President Mohamed did manage to increase the collection of taxes on the airport and seaport in Mogadishu, no small accomplishment amidst pervasive corruption and theft of foreign aid and tax revenues.

In the context of the persisting clan and political infighting, al Shabab finds a constant lease on life. It continues to adroitly insert itself into these clan rivalries and the rapacious and predatory abuse of power by official ruling entities, including land theft, and to obtain local support or at least acceptance. It tends to offer its protection to minority clans against dominant clans, and surprisingly exhibits a great deal of effectiveness in mitigating clan conflict and not appearing beholden to particular clans. In fact, when al Shabab is displaced from an area militarily, clan conflict and associated land and resource theft subsequently tends to explode, replacing a brutal order with renewed insecurity. The membership of the militant group itself, though containing significant numbers of Hawiyes, is pan-clan.

Nor is al Shabab an entity isolated from either Somalia’s people or its powerbrokers. Al Shabab members tend to go in and out of the movement and sometimes interact with their home communities. Within a family, there may well be members in al Shabab as well as in the government forcers, often in communication with each other. Crucially, both political powerbrokers and powerful businessmen often rely on al Shabab to maintain the security, exclusivity, and hegemony of their economic interests in particular areas, in exchange for paying al Shabab zakat. Many powerful economic actors, engaged in exclusionary monopolistic deals and violence against rivals, thus see little benefit from an end to fighting in Somalia.

Moreover, al Shabab is significantly better able to provide security for the movement of vehicles and individuals on the roads it controls than are other actors. Militias and police and SNA units often charge varying, multiple, and high fees, along their segments of the road; and cargo and people are still subject to ambushes, robberies, and rapes. In contrast, checkpoints manned by al Shabab charge one uniform fee, with entering vehicles receiving a receipt, and the people and cargo allowed to proceed safely.16

Al Shabab also outcompetes other actors in Somalia in its capacity to deliver justice and dispute resolution. It retains a reputation for delivering swift, effective, and, crucially, non-corrupt and fair rulings to disputes based on sharia. Thus even people from government held territories, and by some anecdotal accounts occasionally even policemen, go to al Shabab for dispute resolution.17 In contrast, the formal judiciary is perceived as overwhelmingly corrupt, dominated by certain clans, and operating on the basis of outdated 1960s statutes, thus delivering dispute outcomes based on bribes and clan standing.18 Even though efforts are under way to improve the neutrality and functionality of the formal judiciary, a long and complicated road lies ahead. Less arbitrary and corrupt formal justice procedures are of course also dependent on the functionality of police and its ability to gather evidence of crime, a precondition that rarely exists in Somalia.

Al Shabab thus takes advantage of and embraces legitimate grievances of the population, from political and clan injustice and marginalization to the corruption of the judiciary and government institutions. However, al Shabab also overreaches in its brutality and the tightness of control it imposes. Beyond brutal sharia punishment, such as stoning or cutting of limbs, hardly acceptable to most Somalis, it also overreaches in other exercises of its power.

Meanwhile, the popularity of President Mohamed took a tumble in late 2017 and 2018. Many Somalis welcomed his election in February 2017 with enthusiasm, but almost two years later, he has failed to deliver on many on his unrealistic promises, including ending the conflict with al Shabab. Instead he and the federal government have become mired in a series of paralyzing political crises that have exposed and augmented factionalism in the Somali security forces. He has also displayed an authoritarian streak, arresting and cracking down on political rivals by using their alleged financial ties to outside powers as justification. Particularly his effort to remove from office the speaker of the Somali Parliament almost resulted in a violent confrontation in the parliament in late 2017.

Neither the security situation nor the state of politics in Somalia currently give reason for optimism that the 2020 presidential elections will for the first time truly be on the basis of one-man, one-vote throughout Somalia.

The fact that several years ago, Mogadishu accepted federalism and power decentralization is perhaps the greatest recent political accomplishment. Competition over who controls Mogadishu and crucial resources has for years been a major source of conflict and corruption; and to the extent that more stable, sustainable, and accountable governance has at various times emerged, it has been on the local level. Few outside of Mogadishu, including Hawiye clans who frequently dominate business in Mogadishu, want to be ruled by Mogadishu.

However, there is as yet little agreement on what kind of federalism will be created and what the relative balance of power between the center and subnational states will be. How to generate revenues is a major challenge for both the federal and federal governments. The states do not want to give up land taxation to the federal state; but the federal state strongly dislikes the idea of having to rely only on the tax revenues from fisheries and maritime routes. And the promise of potentially huge mineral resources under the Somali sand only makes the federal versus state competition more intense. How power is devolved matters a lot. The biggest danger is that the exclusionary politics over spoils and war rents that have so long dominated Mogadishu will now become replicated at the local state level.

Amidst these long-term structural challenges, the disagreements between the federal government and federal states significantly worsened in 2018, halting formalization of the constitution and creating a myriad of other severe stabilization challenges. In September 2018, leaders of the federal states of Galmudug, Jubaland, Puntland, South West, and Hirshabelle suspended all ties with the federal government. The regional leaders accused the federal government of failing to provide security in the country and adequately combat al Shabab and fulfill its federal responsibilities toward the federal states. They demanded more autonomy and a greater share of foreign aid, lobbying foreign governments to provide them with aid directly.

Tensions between the separatist Somaliland and Mogadishu are also fiercer and more explosive than they have been in a long time. Meanwhile, Somaliland and Puntland engaged in military skirmishes in the spring of 2018 that threatened to escalate in a full-blown war.

External Actors, Regional Situation, and Donor Support

These federal government-federal state tensions have been exacerbated by the Gulf crisis that pitted Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) against Qatar, and by extension Turkey. All four countries have been intensively involved in Somalia and have been Somalia’s major donors of economic and military support and trading and investment partners. Saudi Arabia and UAE sought to force the federal government into supporting their side. When President Mohamed at first refused such pressure, declaring neutrality and refusing to sever ties with Qatar and Turkey, Saudi Arabia and UAE adopted various punitive political and economic measures. UAE also intensified its efforts to cultivate support among various Somali politicians and within federal states, often frustrating the agenda of the federal government.19 In response, federal states, often dependent on UAE funds and investment, publicly sided with UAE and Saudi Arabia. Bypassing Mogadishu, several states, including Somaliland, accelerated negotiations with the Emirati conglomerate DP World servicing Emirati strategic interests over a variety of investments, such leases of local ports. Somaliland’s finalization of a Berbera port contract with DP World prompted fury in Mogadishu, with Mogadishu seeking to stop the deal and the Somali parliament prohibiting it from going forward. In April 2018, the Somali government also confiscated millions of dollars from an Emirati airplane, alleging the money was meant for rival politicians. UAE then suspended its aid to Somalia, including the training of SNA forces, and withdrew all of its personnel from Mogadishu. However, UAE has continued cultivating the federal states, sticking to its port agreements with Somaliland regarding the Berbera port and with Puntland regarding the port in Bosaso. It is also reportedly negotiating with the Jubaland government over the development of the Kismayo port, despite objections from Mogadishu.20

But President Mohamed subsequently also complicated his relations with Turkey, refusing to castigate Saudi Arabia for the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Kashoggi. Turkey was shocked when in October 2018 President Mohamed sided with Saudi Arabia, again threatening retaliatory measures. Yet Turkey is one of Somalia’s major donors and investors, providing direct budgetary support to the government, training Somali forces, managing the port of Mogadishu, building a variety of infrastructure projects in Somalia, and involved in many commercial deals. Unsuccessfully, Turkey also tried mediate a deal between Somaliland and Mogadishu. Yet President Mohamed sided with Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Canada.

Unrelated to the repercussions of the Gulf Crisis in Somalia, the government of Germany also ended its participation in EU’s military training mission in Somalia in early 2018. The German government cited the slow progress of the development of the SNA and its many challenges.21 However, Germany promised to retain its support to the civilian structures of Somalia. It has been one of the principal funders of the low-risk defectors’ program.

On the up side, the federal government of Somalia scored a major victory in October 2018, when the European Union for the first time in decades agreed to channel the vast majority of its 2.5-year aid package of €100 million, pledged at the Somalia Partnership Forum in Brussels in July 2019, to the Somali government’s budget. A vote of confidence that the federal government can better control pervasive corruption, this on-budget funding, formally called the State Building and Resilience Contract in Somalia, promises to strengthen the institutional capacities and delivery by the Somali federal government to the Somali population, increasing the government’s legitimacy. Such on-budget funding is also meant to improve the capacity of the federal government to transfer money to federal states, a mechanism expected to mitigate the federal-federal tensions. Whether that hope will indeed materialize, or, in the current federal crisis context, will be seen by the federal states as their defeat, remains to be seen. So does whether Somalia will have the will and capacity not to waste the financial aid through corruption. The disbursement of the funds is to be sequenced and closely monitored and tied to regular assessments against indicators and safeguard measures.22

In September 2018, the World Bank also approved its first grant to Somalia in thirty years, with US$60 million for Recurrent Cost and Reform Financing Project and US$20 million for the Domestic Revenue and Public Financial Management Capacity Strengthening Project. The World Bank also promised to collaborate with the Somali government on improving healthcare and education, and access to clean water, energy, and finance for Somali citizens under a program known as Country Partnership Framework.23 Although agriculture is seen as key for the long-term growth of the economy and job generation, it remains critically vulnerable to shocks, resulting in repeated famines. Thus the main drivers of growth in the short term remain trade, communications, and the financial and transport sectors.

Conclusion

Without more inclusive and accountable governance, violence reduction and stabilization of Somalia will not be sustainably achieved. The long-advocated remedy for Somalia’s troubles – power devolution and governance at the local level – will be eviscerated if Somali national politicians and local powerbrokers are allowed to subvert the state formation processes and continue to engage in exclusionary power grabs without accountability. But equally, authoritarian measures and selective crackdowns on clientelism will exacerbate Somalia’s political faultlines. Although donors and international actors are unable to control Somali politicians and powerbrokers, the outsiders are impotent. They have influence and should exercise it, at least against the most egregious transgressions, such as large land grabs and systematic clan marginalization that breed conflict.

Fundamentally, whether Somalia succeeds in breaking out of decades of conflict, famine, misery, corruption, and mis-governance depends on the Somali people. It depends on whether a sufficient constituency for better governance and less conflict eventually emerges or whether Somali businessmen and politicians continue to find the way to maneuver around conflict or make money from it while the Somali people barely eke out survival amidst the harshest conditions without mobilizing for change.

To reduce violent conflict and enhance stabilization, the Somali government and international actors can encourage the federal government and federal states to increase efforts to formalize the constitution and agree on an acceptable division of resources between the federal government and the federal states. Involving civil society, including women, in constitutional discussion is crucial. The international community also can help sponsor broad-based societal conversation in Somalia about justice, accountability, and reconciliation – to inform the formalization of the constitutional and other political processes. Such processes can include the development of disarmament, demobilization, justice, accountability, and reconciliation processes for Somali armed actors beyond al Shabab. More broadly, they can help Somalia move away from a militarization of Somali society toward addressing the root causes of conflict – namely, exclusion, clan discrimination, debilitating corruption, and systematic impunity.

The international community can also help foster a more cooperative regional environment, assisting in reconciliation between the federal government of Somalia and UAE.

When newly-elected President Barack Obama asked me at the outset of his administration how to make his White House corruption-proof, my first thought was: “impossible.” Corruption has been with us since time immemorial. Perhaps we could do better than average. But setting out to eliminate corruption entirely seemed a bridge too far.

Nevertheless, in my capacity as his “Ethics Czar,” I worked with the president to design a zero-tolerance program for White House aides. We implemented tough anti-corruption rules and leveraged them with aggressive transparency, e.g., restricting lobbyist contacts with the White House, and putting records of all our visitors online so the whole world could monitor compliance. The result at the end of eight years: For the first time in modern presidential history, not a single White House aide was prosecuted, convicted, or as far as we know, even investigated. Independentobservers have hailed this record, and President Obama credited the program we developed for this outcome. (He disclosed my tongue-in-cheek motto in the following clip.)

Today, I’m pleased to be working with my Brookings colleagues, as well as leading anti-corruption researchers at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) and Results for Development (R4D), to launch a global study of anti-corruption approaches inspired by those I helped pioneer in the Obama administration. We are testing those strategies in what we believe to be among the world’s toughest anti-corruption environments: the natural resource space.

Indeed, many researchers go so far as to talk about the “resource curse,” the (contested) idea that countries blessed with resource endowments are actually more likely to suffer from corruption and other ills. Of course, resource-rich countries are far from alone: Corruption bedevils every part of the world economy, costing the estimated equivalent of five percent of global GDP (or $2.6 trillion), with the annual cost of bribery alone estimated at over $1.5 trillion.

Our global project to test anti-corruption approaches along the natural resource value chain is called “Leveraging Transparency to Reduce Corruption” (LTRC). The project is led by three principal investigators: Daniel Kaufmann of NRGI, Nathaniel Heller of R4D, and me at Brookings. A joint research team drawn from all three organizations will be implementing this five-year, international effort; working with governments, civil society, the public, and other stakeholders to find innovative solutions to the scourge of corruption.

To establish a sound social science foundation for our work, we have spent the past year surveying the vast literature of anti-corruption approaches both inside and outside of the natural resource space, poring over more than 650 books, articles, reports, and more. We’re pleased to share an annotated bibliography containing more than 150 key resources addressing transparency, accountability, and participation efforts along the natural resource value chain. The annotated bibliography includes books, papers, datasets, and much other material. You can find it here, along with tools for mapping and sorting the materials annotated.

What’s next for LTRC? We are currently writing a paper articulating and grounding our hypotheses in light of our review of the existing scholarship. Next year, we will begin implementing a series of mixed-methods, small-scale studies that will test particular aspects of our hypotheses. We will work with stakeholders in selected jurisdictions all over the planet to conduct empirical analyses and determine which approaches work, releasing initial findings to the public in real time. We will follow the small-scale studies with larger ones in the years ahead, more firmly anchoring anti-corruption solutions in the evidence. Finally, we will conclude that work and publish the comprehensive findings, including our recommendations regarding leading practices for reducing corruption in the natural resource space and, we hope, more broadly.

We at Brookings, R4D, and NRGI are very excited about this new chapter in exploring and substantiating evidence-informed governance interventions. Having seen firsthand as “Ethics Czar” how leveraging transparency, accountability, and participation can address corruption, I am hopeful that we will break new ground. Today, when transparency and accountability are facing challenges all over the world, our task is more important than ever.

The Leveraging Transparency to Reduce Corruption project (LTRC) is pleased to share an annotated bibliography (AB) of more than 150 books, papers, tools/datasets, and other resources addressing transparency, accountability, and participation (TAP) efforts along the natural resource value chain. We have also included work that addresses the contextual factors that enable or constrain the effectiveness of TAP approaches. We hope that the AB and related materials described below will serve as a helpful resource for practitioners, policymakers, researchers, donors, and other stakeholders interested in this field.

We have curated these items for the AB from our team’s initial review of a larger pool of more than 650 resources relevant to the LTRC project’s research agenda. That agenda is to establish and apply evidence-informed leading practices in TAP approaches that contribute to reducing corruption and achieving other sustainable development outcomes. To learn more about how we created the AB, including our selection and categorization process, please see the methodology section of the AB.

Readers can also explore the entries in the AB by using the mapping tool below. If you are using a desktop browser, note that countries colored yellow on the map are those covered by entries in the AB. Hover over the map to view the country name, then click on the country and scroll down to see the research for that location in the sortable list. Select the “Global/Regional” box at the top of the map to choose studies that focus on 15 or more countries around the world or on a specific region (e.g., Latin America and the Caribbean).

If you are using a mobile device, click on a continent and scroll below the map to view resources that cover location(s) within those continents, or select “Global/Regional” to choose studies that focus on 15 or more countries around the world or on a specific region.

The list of resources that follows the map below also includes links to the original research (where available online) and allows readers to view (and, in desktop browsers, sort by) author last name, resource title, focus area, location, and publication date. A spreadsheet containing this and additional information about each resource is available here.

The AB and this page will be periodically updated to include additional resources and features based upon our ongoing work, as well as in response to suggestions from users. Please contactus to suggest additional resources or features, or to provide other comments.

In 2016, as Brookings marked its centenary year, we committed to inclusion and diversity as a strategic goal for our Institution’s future. When I assumed the role of Brookings president last year, many of my first conversations with staff throughout the Institution were about inclusion and diversity. Do we, as a staff, reflect the communities we aim to serve? Where we don’t, what can be done?

These conversations were familiar to me. In my 45-year career as a national security professional and Marine Corps General, I had the great fortune to serve alongside so many extraordinary men and women that came from all walks of life. The combination of their diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives made each unit stronger and more effective. I understood the importance of promoting diversity and inclusivity—of acknowledging where we have work to do, and committing to improvements.

Starting today, Brookings will for the first time make our workforce demographic data publicly available on an annual basis. We are proud to be among a growing movement in sharing this data with the general public. I have made it clear to the Institution that we will continue to prioritize inclusion and diversity efforts. Even more so, I aim to make this work central to my tenure as president of Brookings.

What do the numbers show?

As of July 2018, 52 percent of all 444 full-time Brookings employees were women and 32 percent were people of color. Among fellows and senior fellows, however, the gender and racial breakdowns were not where we want them to be. Only 34 percent of our fellows were female and just 22 percent of our fellows were people of color. Diversity among staff in research support positions—including research assistants and analysts—was slightly better. Overall, the highest percentages of women and people of color at Brookings are in operational positions. Our entire demographic data is available here.

We are cognizant that the data we collect as part of our affirmative action questionnaire does not fully capture every element of diversity. Yet we are also aware that we can’t measure progress on what we don’t attempt to quantify. Quantifying these elements illustrates their importance to the Institution and allows us to make improvements and hold ourselves accountable. Diversity is of course made of many factors and qualities, and in future reports we will look for new ways to quantify and analyze the diversity of our existing staff, and share those findings as appropriate.

Finally, I’ll state that while diversity among our staff—in terms of race, gender, and identity—is critical to our strength as an Institution, so is inclusion. This means ensuring that that each individual is heard, appreciated, and empowered to fully participate in Brookings’s mission. Moving forward, our efforts to improve diversity will go hand-in-hand with our promotion of greater inclusivity.

What are we doing to improve?

The first step of this important work is acknowledging that structural inequalities have real consequences for Brookings and its work. In order to become an Institution whose staff reflect the diversity of the broader society we aim to support, we must understand these inequalities and improve our policies in response.

Diversifying the composition of our workforce will make our work more relevant, creative, and compelling—and we are committed to making that happen. Last year, we launched the David M. Rubinstein Fellows Program as one part of our work to build a diverse, next-generation cohort of outstanding scholars in each of our research programs. We also started a new research initiative on race, prosperity, and inclusion to advance the study of equity and the economic prospects of poor and low-income Americans and of communities of color. In May of 2018, we launched a new initiative that aims to improve the quality of life for all members of America’s diverse middle class. Diversity of perspectives is critical to ensuring these research efforts have a substantive impact on public policy, and we’re committed to ensuring those perspectives are included. Finally, we know from experience that tracking these metrics can help us improve: in 2015, we started tracking the make-up of Brookings Institution panels with the aim of showcasing a greater diversity of perspectives at our public events. We’ve seen a 47% decline in all-male panels since we began that exercise.

In the months ahead, we will continue to refine our recruitment practices to ensure we hire from broad applicant pools. We will also examine the role our organization can play in creating opportunities for more young people to pursue higher education, with an aim of addressing the pipeline issues that result in fewer women and people of color in the pool of applicants for senior research positions. We have adjusted our hiring practices to ask for desired salary ranges and not salary histories, which contributes to more equitable salaries for staff who are traditionally likely to be paid less. Our Inclusion and Diversity Committee, comprised of leadership from across the Institution, and led by Vice President and General Counsel Ona Alston Dosunmu, will ensure new recommendations and initiatives are adopted consistently and thoroughly throughout the Institution. Perhaps most importantly, we’ll hold ourselves accountable to improvement.

In addition to publishing our workforce demographic data, Brookings has compiled a literature review on what the research tells us about the significance of inclusion and diversity in the workplace. We are confident that following this path will make us a smarter and stronger think tank able to produce better, more relevant, and more effective policy solutions for our country and the world. In taking these and other steps, we look forward to sharing our continued progress in building a more diverse and inclusive Brookings Institution.

The index is produced by Publish What You Fund, a research and advocacy organization that promotes the advancement of aid transparency, largely through the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). Under IATI, donors commit to publishing foreign assistance data and information in the common IATI standard, thus providing information that is comparable and accessible in one place.

At the event, panelists discussed how public access to how aid is spent is a valuable asset to tackling many global challenges. Below are a few of the key themes.

Why aid transparency is important

Why make aid data publicly available? The reasons are multifold. Access to a comprehensive set of aid data allows donors, partner governments, implementers, analysts, journalists, and citizens to identify what aid is being provided, what their government and other donors are doing, and what aid is needed. Good and accurate data allows development organizations to know where and how to target their assistance. Comprehensive data supports better coordination, better analysis, and better evaluation.

“The more we know about how money is channeled through the global humanitarian system, the better equipped we are to allocate resources effectively and measure results. For donors to provide more flexible and predictable funding they need reliable, real-time, prioritized, comparable and open data on the needs that they are being asked to finance and the results produced by their funding.”

The good news in the 2018 Index is that there has been considerable progress on making aid data public, especially by multilateral development organizations. Special recognition should be given to the Asian Development Bank for its number one ranking, to the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation for maintaining its stellar record by coming in number five, and to USAID for making the most progress of any U.S. agency, putting itself solidly in the “good” category.

Challenges

As we look ahead to the next decade and the ambitions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is clear we face three big challenges:

Second, the magnitude of resources directed to easing humanitarian suffering has exploded. In addition, there is urgency in building resilience through bridging the humanitarian and development divide.

Third, the practice of economic development is changing. Many developing countries can now finance much of their own development, but still need some external support. There is a widening array of donors, both public and private. Development finance—involving a range of public-private collaborations involving traditional aid donors, development finance institutions, private investment funds, blended funds, pooled funds, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds—is expanding rapidly and needs to grow even faster.

The role of development finance

Development finance entities have different models, approaches, and missions. We need to know what they are doing and how they can be harnessed—or at least guided—to support good development.

Investments must be encouraged but the transparency standards that we have worked so hard to instill must be maintained. Without transparency, we lack the tools to facilitate collaboration between different finance organization, to ensure effective use of resources, and to hold institutions accountable.

Full transparency across all development finance organizations would provide a comprehensive map of who is financing what, for what purpose, and where. Having this information supports how resources are targeted. There are still investments for which assistance is the best source of funds, for example, governance and establishing the rule of law. There are other areas—like job creation—where private or blended capital flows make more sense. Having the full picture helps avoid the gaps and the duplication that happens far too often when information is not shared.

Accountability is particularly important in cases of institutions with missions that may not be poverty reduction or even development. How do we know whether investments are contributing to development outcomes without information on results?

Transparency, on its own, will not solve our development challenges. But it is essential to underpin better decisionmaking, coordination, and hopefully outcomes. Development experts know this from experience over the last decade.

Insights from development experts

While our event launching the 2018 Index reviewed the good progress certain donors have made in fulfilling their commitment to IATI, the panel provided a frank and sobering discussion of the hurdles to aid transparency and the challenges of moving from aid transparency to development transparency, that is, transparency of all financial flows for development.

Tessie San Martin, president and CEO of Plan International, which publishes its data to IATI, explained why committing to IATI was important and provided insights into the compliancy hurdles for a midsized international nongovernmental organization.

Joel Charney, executive director of the Norwegian Refugee Council, USA, and Aaron Rosenberg, chief for public affairs of the International Finance Corporation, similarly explained why their organizations have committed to IATI, but also how the IATI format does not always reflect what they do. The IATI structure was designed for reporting traditional development assistance. Some of the fields are not relevant or do not fully capture the nature of humanitarian assistance or development finance. A member of the audience raised a further issue of how to report contracting data—an important function for all development work, regardless of the source of funding. The question then is, how can IATI adjust to accommodate these expanded actors and new resources so that the full range of financial flows are captured?

The panelists agreed that, as difficult as the technical challenges of reporting to IATI are, the greater challenge is finding the political will—like getting senior level directors of organizations to lead—and changing organizational culture. They also acknowledged that data transparency, while by itself not transformative, is an essential tool to making development efforts inclusive, effective, and accountable.

The audience was seized as panelist Kathryn Kaufman’s, managing director for global women’s issues at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, reiterated OPIC’s commitment to advancing women in economic development via its 2X initiative and, as an example of the importance of better data, the need for broader and deeper data on women and girls in order to advance their contribution to development.

Moderating the panel, Paul O’Brien of Oxfam America skillfully led the panelist through a discussion of the need to crowd in more finance and the private sector while not losing standards already achieved and building the will for a high level of transparency.

The value of the Aid Transparency Index

A recent academic analysis has determined that the index “has attained and exercised significant symbolic and normative power by defining clear indicators and benchmarks for donor transparency. Its authority derives from its independence and its process of working with donors and external reviewers.”

As organizations around the world work toward tackling the toughest development challenges, it’s clear that more, not less, transparency will be the key to efficient and effective aid. As such, the aid index will continue to be a tool for good.

The U.S. publishes an enormous amount of data on foreign assistance—including detailed information on budgets, spending, and results—as well as what could be considered electronic libraries of documents on projects, evaluations, and contracts.

Just finding all the information—scattered across a multitude of websites—can be daunting. That task is made all the more difficult when different dashboards publish data on what purport to be identical indicators yet the statistics reported to the public are sometimes vastly different. For frequent users, this breeds distrust of all data that the U.S. publishes. For unsuspecting users, it provides potentially very misleading information.

Congress weighed in on this problem when it passed the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act (FATAA) in July of 2016. FATAA set out requirements for U.S. agencies involved in foreign assistance for publication of information to “ensure the transparency, accountability, and effectiveness” of U.S. foreign aid. The last provision of FATAA gave a sense that Congress wanted the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development to consolidate the data reported on two dashboards, ForeignAssistance.gov and Foreign Aid Explorer, by the end of fiscal year 2018. We realize that these two dashboards were created for different reasons to respond to different needs. But at this point, while not identical in the data they publish, they are so similar in nature that consolidation is the only sensible outcome.

In an effort to resolve the work of State and USAID, the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network recently adopted the “Principles for An Effective Dashboard on U.S. Foreign Assistance,” co-written with Friends of Publish What You Fund. We hope that the consolidation exercise that State and USAID are undertaking will focus attention on the needs of users to have timely and quality information, taking into account the expertise and development roles of each of these U.S. government entities.

With that in mind, we offer this advice:

Publish once, use often: The U.S. publishes its data to a number of venues—the Green Book, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC), and the International Aid Transparency Initiative Registry—to name a few. If the government were to start with one good source of foreign assistance data, it could then use and reuse this data, reformatted as needed. The consolidated website could greatly help this process.

Define your data: Is this budget data? Obligated? Is it complete? The U.S. budget process is long and complicated, so clearly identify not only what a number represents but whether it is partial or represents the total. Also, lay out the methodology, process, and timetable for publication so it is clear to users.

Timely versus verified: There is a trade-off, but there is a need for both. Some users need planned data, such as what is in the Congressional Budget Justification, and this should be posted as soon as available. It also would be useful to post forward-looking projections. Other data—obligations and disbursements—should be posted at least quarterly. And when data is updated or verified, such as the process followed by the Foreign Aid Explorer to post data to the OECD DAC, or when a project closes, ensure corrections or changes in status are posted promptly.

Is the user looking at just U.S. foreign assistance or comparing it across donors? Sector classifications are done in (at least) two ways, by the OECD DAC categories and by U.S. foreign assistance categories. The U.S. has this information and both formats should be available to users.

Foreign assistance information is more than just financial information—the U.S. publishes lots of information that is useful to a range of users. This includes program objectives, descriptions, locations, contracts, results, and evaluations, to name just a few. Gender disaggregated data is also of keen interest and it would be helpful for the U.S. to publish this data in a more consistent and comparable way.

Action on the above points, which encompass principles to work toward, would help ensure published information is trusted and used.

We strongly recommend that the decisions being made to consolidate the two dashboards put the interests of users and taxpayers foremost. The current situation—having data differences, which amount to billions of dollars in discrepancies—cannot continue.

We won’t repeat the findings and recommendations already made in previous posts—those are available. But we will be watching with keen interest—and we think Congress will be as well.

]]>2018 Aid Transparency Index: Progress to date and new frontiers of aid and development datahttps://www.brookings.edu/events/2018-aid-transparency-index-progress-to-date-and-new-frontiers-of-aid-and-development-data/
Fri, 08 Jun 2018 12:56:46 +0000https://www.brookings.edu/?post_type=event&p=520978Today’s aid and development actors, including humanitarian agencies and development finance institutions, operate in a far more complex landscape than 10 years ago when the drive for aid transparency gained momentum. This makes transparency more critical now than ever. To have the biggest possible impact on communities in need, it is vital that all aid and development information is available in a timely, detailed, open, and comparable manner.

On June 20, the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings and Publish What You Fund co-hosted the launch of the sixth Aid Transparency Index. The report, which assesses 45 of the world’s largest donors, is the only independent global measure of aid transparency.

Following a presentation on the findings of the index, a panel of experts discussed new areas of transparency for development finance, with a focus on the role of development finance institutions and humanitarian aid and how these actors can continue to expand their transparency.

China’s central government, the State Council, recently mandated a 30-day public notice-and-comment process for most government rulemakings and institutionalized other mechanisms that increase public participation and transparency in the rulemaking process throughout the country more generally.

These new mechanisms—referred to collectively as the “Procedures”—were accomplished through amendments to two sets of State Council procedures that apply, respectively, to national administrative regulations (xingzheng fagui) issued by the State Council and to lower-level rules (guizhang) issued by the State Council departments and by local governments and their departments. The Procedures effectuate calls by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the State Council to make rulemaking better reflect the will of the people and ensure higher quality regulation. Unexpectedly, the updates also codified requirements for CCP consultation and approval during the rulemaking process.

The State Council issued the original version of the Procedures in 2001 to implement basic rulemaking provisions in China’s Legislation Law, which established the principle that the Chinese people should “participate in legislation through various channels.” The term lifa—legislation—covers not only lawmaking by the National People’s Congress (NPC) but also government rulemaking for legally binding State Council regulations—issued by the State Council—and rules—issued by ministries and provincial governments. Both original Procedures were revised in late 2017, with effect from May 1, 2018.

The revised Procedures enhance public participation throughout the rulemaking process, which comprises four stages. The first stage involves preparing annual rulemaking plans. The Procedures now require the State Council to solicit public input on its annual plan for regulations, but this is optional for annual plans for issuing rules by State Council departments and local governments. In both cases, the finalized plans must now be made public.

At the second stage, agencies designated as drafting units formulate initial drafts of regulations or rules. Both Procedures now require the drafting unit to publish most proposed regulations and rules and to solicit written public input for a minimum 30-day comment period. The comment-seeking obligation is not ironclad. The State Council must publish draft regulations for public comment, unless it decides not to. In the case of rules, drafting units must publish drafts for public input, unless drafts must be kept secret.

Moreover, the comment period shall “in general” not be less than 30 days, but no examples are given of what exceptions to the 30-day rule might be. The foreign business community has long sought longer comment periods of at least 60 to 90 days to provide more time to translate drafts and obtain and translate input. The “not less than” language in both Procedures suggests that drafting agencies may provide longer than the minimum 30 days for drafts impacting foreign interests, but they do not specify such a possibility.

The third stage involves an examination of proposed regulations by the Legislative Affairs Office (LAO) of the State Council or of draft rules by the relevant State Council department or local government or department. Under both Procedures, the LAOs should circulate drafts presented for examination throughout the government and to select outside organizations, experts, and citizens for comments. The LAOs may also decide to conduct a second round of public notice-and-comment.

The fourth stage comprises the final decision and promulgation of the regulation or rule.

The Procedures now also call for post-enactment assessment and “cleanup,” which may lead to a revision or repeal of a regulation that would be subject to the same rulemaking procedures.

The Procedures provide additional avenues for expanded public participation. Public hearings are optional for draft State Council regulations, whereas they are now required for input on drafts of controversial rules. Some central ministries and many local governments have convened public rulemaking hearings for many years. The State Council never has, but the Procedures leave open that possibility. Both Procedures further codify recent practices of inviting outside experts, academic and research institutes, and social organizations to help draft or independently prepare “expert” drafts, to conduct “appraisal and consultation,” and to offer third-party assessments of drafts in various circumstances.

Although the Procedures increase the overall transparency and responsiveness of China’s regulatory process, additional requirements, many of which are being implemented in practice, would further improve the process. These include: disclosing the public’s comments and transcripts of public hearings, appraisals, and other meetings; disclosing the advice of outside experts, institutes, and social organizations; providing feedback on how the public’s comments were considered; requiring and disclosing regulatory impact analyses of the proposed regulations and rules; and establishing online rulemaking dockets to collect related materials in a permanent record.

The absence of a requirement to explain how the public’s input was considered is particularly disappointing, since the CCP and State Council have endorsed public comment feedback to ensure accountability. Under both Procedures, drafting agencies and LAOs must prepare explanations of the drafts they submit for review and decision, so preparing a public explanation of how the public’s input was considered should not require much extra effort.

As for remedies, the Chinese public cannot challenge a regulation in the courts. The Procedures do provide, however, that members of the public can seek review by the NPC Standing Committee or State Council if they believe a regulation or rule is inconsistent with a superior law or regulation. Moreover, the public can sue the government for failure to comply with procedural requirements that infringed their lawful rights and interests. The Procedures do not, though, explicitly mention such a remedy, and it is unclear whether requirements like the 30-day comment period will be deemed sufficiently concrete to permit such challenges.

Both Procedures also give the CCP a role in the rulemaking process. Previously, de facto CCP involvement in legislation was exercised pursuant to conventions and unpublished Opinions on Strengthening CCP Leadership over Legislation. The Opinions reportedly require that draft laws and regulations relating to political matters and major economic and social issues must first be deliberated by the Central Committee or the CCP organization at the same level as the drafting body. These principles of CCP approval have been written into both Procedures, which also require that regulations and rules implement the CCP’s line, policies, and decisions.

CCP leadership may be intended more to ensure policy oversight than to interfere with what is becoming a more transparent and participatory rulemaking process. Insertion of the CCP into state law, however, is a disturbing trend that raises concerns about China’s rule of law project. Nonetheless, the gradual institutionalization of transparency and public participation in rulemaking represents progress along the road to modernizing the Chinese governance system.